I browsed thru the thread, and didnt see anything about the reload times. But what I picked off from some documentary was that some tanks had extra shells on the floor of the tank, making them easily accessable.

Lindemann, had originally intended to be a pilot and he knew several fellows who later went on to become aces. One of theses was Hans Joachim Marseilles, sometimes known as the 'Star of Afrika'. Marseilles was known as a ladies man and a heavy party boy, even to the point of missing a morning flight by being too hungover to fly. I suppose the Higher ups tolerated it because he brought results on his missions bringing down enemy planes with as few as two or three rounds. He often brought his plane back with multiple kills and left over ammo in the guns. A master of the deflection shot, one of his wing men told a story of him bringing down a Spit V with one single round of cannon in the Spits engine while in a steep turn.
The story Lindemann told me about him was that they were chatting about aircombat during a drunken beach party and Marseille told him he had found a way to turn inside those pesky Spitfires. Marseille said that what he had done was to split the landing gear hydraulic system on his 109 with a pump for each gear. He could then partly drop whichever gear he wanted to in order to turn faster in that direction.

I am certain he knows Carius's exploits, he lent me a couple books on Tiger Aces.
Wasn't Carius SS? I don't remember off the top of my head.
Lindemann seems to have a rather curious attitude toward SS guys. The times he's mentioned them, I get the impression he thinks that they were far too hardcore. People whom it was best to stay away from. He certainly admires the big Tiger aces though.
You know, it kind of feels to me like he regrets not making it out of Afrika and missing the rest of the war. I am pretty sure he would have regretted it if he HAD made it out to rejoin the rest of the Wehrmacht.
I am certain that he still believes that what he was doing was right. He wasn't a fan of the National Socialists and at one point described Hitler as "Crazy as a bedbug!"
Africa was a different kind of war, a 'clean' war if that's possible. Very few civilians were involved. Most of the time troops were out in the middle of nowhere with nothing around for hundreds of miles. Guys depending on each other for their lives everyday for years develope a special cameradery and I think he still misses that. In spite of the blood and death of war I think he still thinks of those times as the best part of his life. It was when he himself had the most impact on the world.
I think he still misses that....

For those guys that asked, unfortunately he never met Von Luck or Knappe or Carius, although he is certainly familiar with them. He has a copy of Von Lucks book he said, so I'm sure he's read it.

Aismov, when I asked about Col. Kriebel, he said yes he met him a few times. As Rommel needed, units were transferred between 15th and 21st Panzer and Lindemann met him a few times at briefings. He said he hadn't read Kriebels book because he hadn't heard about it, but he is going to look for a copy.

His Kreigschule was in fact at Potsdam and afterwards at Doberitz (you German guys don't give any crap about my spelling, I got no umlauts!). What year was Knappe at Potsdam?

Wolf326, when I asked about strafing planes killing tanks, he said he'd never seen any rifle calibre stuff penetrate. He said that they did sweat air attacks though. Planes would spray mg fire around to keep the tanks buttoned up and infantry under cover until the fighter-bombers could drop bombs on 'em. If they were moving, the tankers would just keep moving if they could, the trucks and stuff would catch up later.
When the Brits got the 40mm armed Hurricanes, that really made the tankers sweat. Even if it wouldn't penetrate everything it could certainly break track if the pilots got good hits. (Brit pilots were trained to 'walk' their rounds into a target. It wasted a good bit of ammo though and a lot of pilots didn't like doing it that way.)
He said they really didn't see a lot of enemy air though. The DAK spent a lot of time in the deep desert and you had to find them before you could attack them. When they did get discovered though it meant you were gonna get bombed and strafed just as hard as they could. Then all you could do was wait it out and try to move the unit under the cover of darkness. He did say that their SPAA saved them on more than one occaision. (I have a convoy story that I will relay a bit later.)

HTMD, he said he is from Franconia himself, (is that a county name?) He is still planning on heading home sometime soon, maybe you'll get a chance to meet him yourself!

Earlier in this thread I said that Lindemanns turret number was 112. This was incorrect, that number appeared on a PzIV that he was assigned to before he got his Tiger.
Markings on his Tiger were DAK palm on glacis left of drivers viewport, balkenkreuz on hull side, midway along. Turret numbers were 111 in black with a white outline. On the back of the turret on the "rummelbox" (not sure how to actually spell the word he said but it was pronounced 'roomelbachs', can one of you German guys help me out with that?), anyway, on the equipment box mounted on the back of the turret, was stenciled KG-N in black, all caps, no outline. KG-N stands for "Kampf Gruppe Nord" and refers to the Gruppen formed by Rommel for the battle of Kasserine pass. This is the gruppe known to the men of that KG as "Kampfgruppe Lindemann". It was a fairly common practice to name a gruppe after it's commander. I have also seen the gruppe refered to as "KG-Gerd" as well.

After his capture (and I will deal with all this in more detail as I actually get on with writing his story), and since he was pretty severely wounded, he went first to the Tommies field hospital but was quickly moved on to a city (I think he said Constantine), from there he was shipped to New York (he was pretty doped up throughout this and he may have changed ships a couple times, hard to tell...). From New York he was shipped to Kansas City, (any KC guys tell me if there is a Hospital or something named "General Winders" there?) After recovering to the point of being releasable, he was sent to Camp Phillips in Kansas. He wasn't there long before someone pointed out that he was an officer and this was an enlisted POW camp, so, his next stop was Camp Carson which I believe was in Texas. There in Texas, he met up with other officers from his command for the first time in more than a year. Not only his fellow officers but every Tiger tank the the Americans had been able to drag there! "They wanted us to put together a running Tiger for them, but no one would co-operate." After some time in Texas, he and some other officers were moved to Camp Custer in Michigan. He was Ranking officer there and had a U-Boat exec as his second. That's where he was when the war ended.
He went home shortly after the war with Japan was concluded and returned here to Grand Rapids in 1953 where he has been pretty much ever since.

ismov, when I asked him how tankers kept cool he basically laughed. "We are sitting in an iron box, in the desert, with an enormous motor behind us making more heat. The only place we had ever seen airconditioning was at the cinema."
He said that whenever he got a chance he would volunteer to take the northern flank of a movement, as that put his unit closest to the Med coast where conditions were a bit more comfortable.
Night time was less of a problem obviously, as temperatures tend to dip rather precipitously in the desert after dark.
I asked about water and mentioned that the British 8th army got a ration of one gallon per, day per man, for all purposes. His reply was that the Tommies had it easy, DAK got one Liter per man, per day, for all purposes. If you wanted a wash or shave you'd better hope you were close to the coast. Oh, and you don't spit when you brush your teeth.
Initially at least, water was carried in jerry cans on trucks back and forth between supplies and units. Later tanker trucks were used as you could haul more water that way and a unit would refill the cans they had.
Food was always a problem too. Rations tended to be canned sausage and potatoes, canned beans, canned fish, a bread ration as often as the bakers could manage and whatever they could scrounge. Unless they were in the deep desert, arabs alway turned up to sell the troops anything they could. Lindemann said they would just wander in through the German perimeters and suddenly there would be a bunch of them setting up a bazaar. Some of the foods were a bit suspect however. One of his crew came up to him one day and asked if he thought that a carcass being sold would be edible. Inspecting it closely, Lindemann turned back to the guy and told him "We don't eat dog meat." Still, desparate times...

Mcdeath and a couple others asked about awards;
Lindemann was allowed to pick his personal crew, all were at least OberFeldWebel and everyone had at least Eisenkreuz First or Second Class. Lindemann himself was up for a Ritterkreuz near the end but his commander kept putting it off. "There will be time later." he said. If I understand correctly, you needed both First and Second Class Iron Cross to be eligible for the Knights Cross. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) for him, his war ended before the paperwork went through...

Werwulf, I'm sure you can imagine how rare a DAK guy is here in the states. Lindemann said that as far as he knew, he was the last survivor of his Kampfgruppe.
If any of you guys out there are aware of any other survivors, most likely in Germany, possibly South America, he would be grateful I am sure, for the information.

Ron, when I asked why he came back to the U.S. he said that he had gotten his engineering degree and was trying to find something that would pay him decently. He and some others had a 'too good to be true' offer in Caracas, and after that fell through he went to the states. The money here for an engineer after the war was pretty darn good and so, he stayed. Among other things he was one of the guys who did design work on the Abrams, and insists that he's the one who made sure it used a steering wheel for turning just like the Tiger.

A superb thread, with terrific information and insights straight from one intimately in the know Learnt quite a bit here that one wouldn't normally find in typical reference books...

Quote:

Originally Posted by 602Sqn_Puff

Would it be possible to try and find out the reload time for the rounds in a Tiger..we have had quite a debate on the Tiger v T34 forums about this one and no-one can give a good answer.

The rate of fire of the KwK 36 should be quite close to that of its FlaK sibling, or around 15-20 rounds per minute. The relatively high rate of fire is due to the fact that the 88 uses a semi-automatic sliding breechblock. Hence, the loader just needs to ram the round into the chamber and the rim of the brass case would engage the extractor, which in turn releases the breechblock that then slides shut into battery - all in one smooth motion. On firing, the recoil releases a catch which drops the breechblock automatically, which in turn engages the extractor and yanks out the empty case as the gun slides back into battery. You can see this in action on various videos of 88s in action, but here are some good ones:

Notice that the empty case is clear of the breech and the gun is hence clear to receive a fresh round even before the gun is back in battery; the gun can thus fire pretty much as fast as the loader can feed it.

It would appear that there are two main differences with regards to the Tiger's KwK 36 as opposed to the FlaK. First is that the loader is working in the confines of the turret; he has to pull a round from the rack then load it in, and this of course adds to the reload time unless he stands with another round already in his hands while the gun is loaded. The other potential factor that may affect reload time (if only slightly) is the fact that on the KwK, the loader stands on the right of the breech rather than on the left as in the case of the FlaK. Hence, the loader would be using his left hand to ram the rounds into the breech. Good training and practice may well offset that, though, but there it is.

Furthermore, most if not all the ammunition for the main gun is stored in the hull sides of the Tiger; as such, the rounds on one side would run out if the turret is not rotated throughout the combat engagement, and so after a while the rate of fire might be expected to drop slightly as rounds from the other side of the hull have to be passed across the turrent to the loader. However, this is perhaps not really worth modelling in all but the most hardcore of tank sims.

Other than those differences, the Tiger's KwK should have a rate of fire very similar to that of the FlaK, rather than the slightly anaemic one many sims (including T-34 v Tiger) use - probably as a result of assuming that the KwK 36 uses a manual breech like many other guns. :P

Wandered to the thread over at WWIIOL's forums and there's few updates that I missed earlier.

Klesh; Basically he said that his flying class was simply packed up wholesale and sent to the Armour school. (I forgot to ask where, but I think it was mentioned earlier in the thread...)
As an officer his training was a bit accelerated over the regular crews, so while he started out driving he was quickly trained in other positions until it was felt that he was qualified as a commander.
So he was (as an officer) already chosen to be a panzer commander.
Assignments were made as and when crews were needed.
When he arrived in Nord Afrika, Lindemann was already a Hauptmann.
(family might have helped in promotions)
Steady success lead to steady promotion letting him finish the war as a Major.
His last promotion was just after Kasserine.
As far as favorite targets...
He said that they liked to see softskins since they were both an easy target and (if they could be taken without too much damage) a source of supplies (fuel, food and water).

He said that the Grant/Lees were nasty to face because of that 75mm gun but that they were too tall to hide effectively, so they were easy to spot.
Shermans came as a nasty surprise and if you were in a Pz IV or III you had to do your best to get a flanking shot on them.
When the Americans showed up, thier equipment was still painted OD green and they were easy to see.
The Americans were as green as their armour too. He said that there was one encounter (Kasserine?) where he had 3 or 4 Shermans simply charge the German position across an open plain.
They were kicking up so much dust that they couldn't even see each other and the Tigers had no problems picking them off before they knew what was happening.
Unfortunately he couldn't remember what he killed the most of (Softskins didn't count as kills) but early on it was the Brits, so Valentines, Crusaders, Stuarts and Matildas would have been on the list. When the Americans came in it was Shermans and Stuarts...
Stuarts were the hardest to hit btw, IF they were moving...

BlackDragon;
Lindemann said that he was first assigned to the Pz III, moved to the PzIV and was picked for the Tiger because of his experience and the skill of his crew.
Senior crews were allowed first pick of new vehicles.
Wherever possible commanders were allowed to pick their own crews although if you had casualties you got whoever was available as a replacement.
He never saw the Royal Tiger until after the war but he thought that they were impressive, if only Germany hadn't been so low on fuel at the end...

Volcol;
Only the 11th Hussars operated DACs in North Africa. Lindemann said that you saw them once in a while but usually at a distance and he never fired at one.
Earlier in the thread, someone asked about the effectiveness of the 2lber gun and Lindemann said that the 'little popguns' didn't worry Tiger crews too much.
2lber crews would shoot at your tracks though since they knew that that was about the only way to stop a Tiger (flanking shots are hard to get with a ATG), I assume that the DAC crews were more worried about gathering intel than trying to take on a Tiger...

Lindemann basically said that HE never actually shot anybody with a hand weapon.
He said however, that before crews moved out on an attack that he and a few of his commanders would go out before dawn and scout terrain and enemy defenses. Occasionally they would run foul of pickets. Scouting Tobruk got him shot at a couple of times but they had a couple of troopers along to cover the officers.
Crew weapons on a Tiger.
Lindemann said he carried a P-38 and crews could pretty much use whatever they could get their hands on but the Tank came equipped with an MP-38 clipped inside the turret and both the hull and turret MGs were easily removable.

As far as the 'Green Tiger' goes, Lindemann said that although his crews were authorized to camouflage their Tigers with dark grey patterns over their factory Afrika Braun paint, none of his guys bothered. So he says he never saw a 'Green Tiger'. The Bovington Tiger wears a Light Olive Green mottle pattern over Afrika Braun. That being said, after Kasserine, the DAK captured quantities of American stores including Olive Drab paint.
Rommel did not waste supplies and there are suggestions that some of the 501st Tigers were repainted using Olive Drab while in repair depots.

That is all, the last post from the guy is dated back to early 2009. Ow he also mentioned that he had built an Uboat model to an Uboat Kapitan who lives around there. Also, he has heard that there lives another Tiger commander somewhere in the area, he was an SS and served in the Eastern Front.

Dowly
Great interview and well written. We are losing these veterans at an increasingly rapid pace and soon they and their personal experiences will be lost to us forever. Thank you for putting this together.

On another note, you've made reference to a WWIIOL game. Sounds interesting could you shed some light on exactly what it is.

If you experience this problem, and you are 100% sure that you have both the folder and any files within the folder closed, pls post details to me including the exact steps that I can follow to repeat the problem. Also include details of the OS you are using and any error messages.